Lexington Tattoo Project announces video premiere

Jonathan Stafford of Lexington gets his tattoo as part of the Lexington Tattoo Project from Jason Cameron Armstrong, co-owner of Charmed Life Tattoo Studio on North Limestone in Lexington, Ky., on Jan. 31, 2013. Herald-Leader photo by Rich Copley.

We now know when the Lexington Tattoo Project will unveil its big secret: the image those more than 200 tattoos Lexingtonians got last winter create when they are all put together.

A quick recap: Late in 2012, Transylvania University-based artists Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova announced the Tattoo Project in which words and phrases from a poem about Lexington by Bianca Spriggs would be tattooed on more than 200 area residents. The project attracted everyone from the heavily tattooed to first timers who got their words of choice inked onto their bods by Robert Alleyne and Jason Cameron Armstrong of Charmed Life Tattoo. Embedded in each tattoo was a set of blue dots that Gohde and Todorova say form a single image when brought together.

The video includes the poem, The ______ of the Universe, read by Spriggs, and original music for the video by Lexington native Ben Sollee. According the event Facebook page, we will also, “meet the person who wears the entire image as a tattoo.” Hmmmmm.

Of course, one video does not a party make, so it will also include music by the March Madness Marching Band, which had many members participate in the project, the Lexingtones Ukulele Group, and other performers who were participants in the project. There will also be art by PRHBTN and the announcement of the winning image for the Lexington Tattoo Project book.